My entry into the hideous shoe contest

MPM has shared Shauna's lucite lovelies and the camel-toes.  I saw these today and thought they just might make it into the blogger girl Hall of Hideous Shoes (WTF also ran through my mind).  Comments welcome.

Thelma and Louise

Nurse Nancy and I are off for a girlfriend's weekend later today.  Three days of no laundry, no cooking, no making beds.  Our toughest decisions will be where to have dinner and what wine goes with what we order.   Stories will be exchanged and laughter will be plentiful.  And if it's anything like our previous girlfriend weekends, we'll be in our room early watching TV or faces buried in a good book.  Relaxation will abound and we'll return home refreshed and ready to face the world.

Note: Unlike the "real" Thelma and Louise, our trip will not include a convertible, a gun or Brad Pitt, unless he's bussing tables, waiting on us in a store or filling up the car.  

Where's spring?

It's April. I think. At least that's what the calendar says the month is.

Apparently spring didn't get the memo that temperatures are supposed to be in the mid sixties. Not the low nineties like it was yesterday.

I have a real problem putting the air conditioner on in April. But when the temp inside the house is 85, you do what you have to do. So we turned on the A/C Sunday and it's still on. I'm hoping that this is not an indication of how the summer will be.

I love this show

A few weeks ago, "The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency" premiered on HBO. I had been eagerly awaiting it's premier and I must say that I was not disappointed.

Philadelphian Jill Scott is wonderful as Botswana's first woman detective Precious Ramotswe and Anika Noni Rose as her secretary/assistant Grace Makutsi (think an African version of Ugly Betty) are simply wonderful as they investigate every thing from cheating spouses to a dentist with a Jekyll/Hide personality who, as it turns out, is twin brothers on of whom is a dentist and the other is not.

If you subscribe to HBO and have not seen this delightful show, don't hesitate and watch it. You'll become a fan.

What did you say?

I'm sure this has happened to most of us. Selective hearing and senior moments. A dangerous combination.

This and That Thursday

Here's what's going through my mind today:

• Cleaned my downstairs - why did I give up my cleaning people?  Probably because they weren't doing such a good job!
• Regatta season is winding down - I'll get my laundry room back - no more crates of supplies on the floor.
• Went diving in the paper recycling bin.  My father called to ask if I still had the Philadelphia paper with the articles about Harry Kalas' funeral in them.  I thought I had put them aside for my son, but of course, they were in the bin.
• I have about four months of magazines to go through and rip out recipes, articles and decorating ideas I like.  Then the things I rip out will sit in a pile for a year until I throw them out.  
• Does any one else have a kitchen island that is a paper and mail collector?

Stroke, stroke

Ha, made you look - dirty minds!

MAAC championships yesterday. Spawn rowed in a pair, a four and an eight - that's three races, each one is 2,000 meters. That's a lot of rowing. He was one tired young man at the end of the day. As were the other guys in the four who also rowed in three races.

The weather held out and many parents came to cheer on the team. Go Stags!





PS: His best finish of the day was third in the four. His foot lock broke in the pair - the same thing happened to his partner three weeks ago - piece of crap boat! Not a good finish on that one or the eight. He and his rowing partner have finally been given a newer boat to use - politics in rowing too! Overall, the men's team finished fourth.

Freaky Friday

Sometimes you look at the young people today and a scene like this blows through your mind. And you are frightened beyond words. And they'll be managing social security. What's left of it.

This and That Thursday

Last week I posted some randomness on Thursday and it was fun. So I'll once again reach into my brain and see if there's anything there. This week, the TV part of my brain will be tapped.

o Does anyone else thing that this season of "Survivo"r has the biggest collection of geeks yet?

o Have you seen "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" on HBO yet? If not, watch it. It's fun.

o My husband has started watching "Jeopardy" after dinner. Like my parents who are 80 and 86. I'm getting concerned.

o After watching the preview for "The Real Housewives of New Jersey" I will be certain to tell people I meet that I live in South Jersey. We are nothing like those housewives from the northern part of the state.

o I am loving the feud between Bethenny and Kelly on "The Real Housewives of New York." Kelly is making an ass of herself and Bethenny remains as cool as a cucumber.

Enough of my rambling. What's on your mind this Thursday?

Murphy's Law of Cleaning

I dislike cleaning. Maybe I should rephrase that. I would rather do most any other chore than cleaning. Especially bathrooms.

So it follows that this morning, while I was vacuuming upstairs, with a fairly new vacuum cleaner, in my husband's closet, a shoe polishing cloth (the ones you bring home from a hotel) got sucked up into the vacuum and caused one of the belts to break. Of course, I didn't realize this until after I pulled out the cloth and tried to finish vacuuming. And the vac didn't work in self-propelled mode or even in the regular mode. So I decided to take it apart and see if something else had been sucked up.

Imagine my surprise to find out that this machine (purchased around Christmas time) has two belts - one for the beater and one for the self-propelled mechanism. One was broken and the other was stretched so that it wasn't working either. So off I go in search of belts.

The Wal-Marts didn't have them. They didn't have any belts for Hoover machines. I was going to try the other Marts - the K variety - but the store is like a ghost town. So I headed one town down the river to an independent "sew and vac" store. I hit the mother lode - this store had ever belt and bag ever made. So fifteen minutes and fifteen dollars later, I was on my way home to put the new belts on the vacuum. And finish cleaning. Yippee!

Missing him already

My son just left to go back to school a few minutes ago. He's got lots of work to get done, so he's headed back to hunker down in the library and get his papers and projects done. And I miss him already.

My relationship with my son is, in my opinion, pretty good. While I don't think that parents and kids should be "best friends," I must admit that we do share many of the same tastes and interests. We both like pointless, funny movies. If "My Cousin Vinny" or "Summer Rental" or "The Great Outdoors" or any other movie of this genre is on, we are parked in front of the tube, laughing our butts off. In the kitchen, he the best sous chef a mom could want. We have the same twisted sense of humor and laugh at the same jokes.

In a month he'll be home for the summer. And we'll kick off our shoes, grab a beverage and watch a movie. And I can't wait.

Happy Easter

He is Risen! Alleluia!

Easter blessing to all of you.

This and That Thursday

I'll admit, I'm a copy cat. Mental Mama does this most Thursdays and I think it's interesting to have a post about random things that have no common theme and may or may not make any sense to any one but the author. So here goes:

Should I trap and release the groundhog that is destroying my yard or "exterminate" it?

A business owner near the Jersey shore was fined for putting up road side signs advertising that her business was expanding and moving to a new location. On the flip side, business owners who use the same road side signs to advertise "going out of business sales" are not subject to a fine. Is this fair?

Does anyone else find Brian Williams' crooked face distracting?

Will the inside of my car ever be clean?

Peeps - soft or stale?

Chocolate covered eggs - butter cream, peanut butter or cocoanut?

Sixth folder, sixth photo

Now that I have more photo loaded on my computer, I thought I would give this a try. So after going to my sixth folder, the sixth photo is:



This is my son and niece taken in January when they were both on semester break and she was visiting from Texas. Oh how I miss having both of them around.

Friendship Award

A little more than a month ago, I received a comment on my blog from a new reader, Sue. As it turns out, she is from NJ, I live in NJ. She has relatives that lived in the town my husband grew up in. She lives in Georgia, my brother lives in Georgia. Connections were found and we became online friends. And I recently discovered that her daughter lives in NJ and in the same part of the state too.

Today, while doing my daily "blog cruise" I discovered that she had bestowed on me a Friendship Award. And now it is time for me to pay it forward and pass it on to eight of my friends.

To Nurse Nancy, a new blogger, but a friend I met on my honeymoon almost 22 years ago.
To SFO Mom Barb, whom I met online and have become friends with as we live near each other. We meet for breakfast or lunch once in a while.
To TSAnnie, whom I met through Nurse Nancy. She has turkeys living at her house
To Mental Pause Mama, whom I met through Annie. She has this thing about Shauna and her Lucite shoes
To Country Girl Kate another blog friend who lives near my college stomping grounds. She takes really, really nice pictures.
To Chesapeake Country Girl Marlene, who always makes me laugh with her stories and smile with her good deeds
To Simple and Ordinary Christine, who is complex and special and who has a book being published soon
And finally To Hawaii Catholic Mom Esther, a Jersey girl I hope to meet someday in NJ and visit some day in Hawaii.

Ladies, thanks for your friendship and now you too should pass it on.

For Mental Mama

Need I say more?